As part of our commitment to a process of Continuous Improvement the management team at Bowfell House completed a Deep Dive into our Service and Experience offer. This took place in the second half of 2023 and was led by Jayne Callaghan, our Director of Hospitality with input from other Directors and our Senior Leadership Team.
The intention was to review our offer to ensure it aligns with our vision for Bowfell House: ‘A great place to live and work, and a welcoming place for family, friends and the wider community.’
We used this opportunity to reflect on what has gone well and where we can improve. We started by carrying out a 2-week observation of our mealtimes, this was carried out by members of the Senior leadership team and our Kitchen manager to enable us to see how and where we could make improvements. Overall, the experience and the observations showed things in a positive light with the lunchtime experience being of a high standard. Feedback overall from the residents remains high. Further training has been arranged for the Hospitality Team to ensure we continue to strive for an Outstanding Service for our residents.
We were delighted to report on increased community involvement and more visits out of the home. After the restrictions of the pandemic period, it is great to be able to do so. This has meant that we have been able to invite outside entertainers into the home and have been able to open the home to visitors from within the community, the regular Coffee Mornings have been a great succes and the numbers attending continue to grow. We have held garden parties and other social events which have all been very well attended.
We have also been able to reach out the Local Churches to develop links with them enabling our residents to continue to be able to worship. We have developed links with other local groups including Rangers, St Monica’s School and the local W.I Choir, all of which have helped to enhance the lives of the residents living at Bowfell House.
We have started to build up a bank of Volunteers who are also coming in to the home on a regular basis to enhance the lives of our residents, from Leni the therapy dog and his owner to Alwyn who is supporting the residents to knit hats for premature babies. They all give up their time to help us alongside our wonderful Activity Team to provide an Outstanding Activity provision within Bowfell House.
We continue to engage with all our wonderful and supportive families with regular Family meetings, Residents meetings and Review meetings with all the residents’ families. We offer different times for the meetings to ensure that we involve as many people as possible. We have also offered meetings virtually as well as face to face to ensure as many families are able to be involved.